The Southern Frontier 1670-1732

CHAPTER XII: THE BOARD OF TRADE AND SOUTHERN COLONIZATION, 1721-1730

CHAPTER XII THE BOARD OF TRADE AND SOUTHERN COLONIZATION 1721-1730 Georgia was the last successful enterprise of English colonization within the limits of the United States; it was also one of the first notable achievements of modern philanthropy. The dual character of the project was widely advertised by the charter and in the promotion literature of the Trustees: it has become a commonplace of colonial history. But how did these two movements, charitable and strategic, chance to converge in 1730-1732? Since the beginning of effective English occupation of Carolina, in 1670, the region south of the Savannah had repeatedly attracted colonial projectors as different in station and interests as Lord Cardross and Captain Thomas Nairne. The Margravate of Azilia had exactly coincided \\·ith the later Georgia tract; the Golden Islands were, of course, the seaislands of the Georgia coast. Barnwell's scheme for the fortification of the mouth of the Altamaha had assumed that this fort, and the other frontier garrisons which he advocated, would become centres of English settlement. These projects revealed a continuous interest in a region which geography and the strategy of empire had marked as a zone for English expansion. Reinforcing the propaganda from South Carolina, the projectors asserted the claims of frontier defense in the South at a time when the Board of Trade was just awakening to the peril of French encirclement. By 1720 the Board was fully committed to the settlement as well as the fortification of the land which became Georgia. But for more than a decade various obstacles prevented the fruition of this purpose. Despite the zeal of the Board, the Privy Council was indifferent. Moreover, until 1729, so long, that is, as the Proprietors held title to the soil, the proprietary land policy checked all efforts at southward expansion, either by planting from South Carolina or by diverting the mounting stream of foreign Protestant emigration to the southern frontier. [281 ] 282 THE SOUTHERN FRONTIER 'The Misfortune of this Country at Present,' wrote Nicholson in 1724, 'is the Uncertainty ... whither his Majesty will keep it or the Lords Proprietors be restored, and their Lordships having been Pleased to shutt up their Land Office which hinders people from taking up lands in Order to Settle the Frontiers especially to the Southward which Borders on the Spaniards and French who are now United and we find that they are not only Endeavouring to sett their Indians upon ours but likewise Inveighling them from us.'! From 1719 to 1730 the land office remained closed. In self-justification the Proprietors pointed to the arrears of quit-rents, and the obstacles Nicholson had placed in the way of their collection. Land grants would be resumed, declared their secretary, Richard Shelton, 'as soon as the present Governor is removed.'2 Indifferent , seemingly, to the need of repeopling and extending the ravaged Carolina frontiers, the Proprietors made use of their ownership of the land as a lever to secure restoration of their powers of government. The colonists were naturally confirmed thereby in their anti-proprietary bias. In the midst of this quarrel the provincial government developed an interesting scheme for border settlements, which had an important place in the evolution of the Georgia enterprise. It served to link the projects of Barnwell with the Board of Trade's noteworthy instructions of 1730 to Governor Robert Johnson for the establishment of townships on the Carolina rivers, including the Savannah and the Altamaha, instructions which determined the precise locale and the border character of Oglethorpe's colony. Nearly a decade before 1730 this policy in all essentials was proposed by the South Carolina assembly. The basis, apparently, was John Barnwell's idea of a settlement at the Altamaha. Indeed , Barnwell was chairman of the committee of the Commons House which proposed an address to the home government , in June, 1722, for grants of land for townships to be set out on the Savannah and the Altamaha Rivers.3 But without waiting for proprietary consent or royal aid, the province had 1 c.o. 5 :387, f. 68. 2 C.O. 5 :359, B 103, 104. 3 JCHA, June 19, 1722. SOUTHERN COLONIZATION 283 already attempted a beginning of the novel policy, novel, that is, upon the southern border, though customary in New England and already adopted by Virginia. In July, 1721, a law was enacted 'for preventing the Desertion of Insolvent Debtors, and for the better...